Bleeding Heart
by dantesdarkqueen
Summary: Ninety years ago, every single inhabitant of a mountaintop village vanished without a trace. Over the decades, curious explorers have traveled to the abandoned hamlet, only to disappear as well. Now two private investigators find themselves at the center of the past and present, and a ritual that calls to the blood within...
1. The Journey

**Summary: **Ninety years ago, every single inhabitant of a mountaintop village vanished without a trace. Over the decades, curious explorers have traveled to the abandoned hamlet, only to disappear as well. Now two private investigators find themselves at the center of the past and present, and a ritual that calls to the blood within...

**Disclaimer: **This idea is mine. Fatal Frame, and all associated objects and names? Not so much.

**Queen's Quornor: **I've had this idea squirreled away in my notebooks for seven years, but I've never been able to convince myself to make a full-fledged fic out of it. The reason? My only other Fatal Frame fic, "Kindred Souls," took a lot out of me. I've also been preoccupied with fics in other fandoms, in particular Final Fantasy 7 and Dragon Age. But every now and then, I'll get a new idea for a thread in this story, and at last I figured "Why not?" This is a little different from my original idea, which sounded more like a bad hentai. I wanted a more serious tone, and so there's going to be a greater emphasis on blood and darkness than the first few scribbles would indicate. Also, no familiar faces here. This will tie back to the games, but these are all original characters. Please don't lambaste me for an original story!

The Journey

_"The ritual is incomplete!"_

_"The blood is wrong..."_

_"...not passed..."_

_"He is coming!"_

Sumira startled awake, feeling the pressure of a hand atop her shoulder. Her heart pounding in her throat, phantom voices echoing in her mind, she wrenched her head around to see Akira standing behind her. "You shouldn't sleep at your desk," he chided her with a brilliant grin, his golden-brown eyes twinkling. "It's bad for your spine."

"Sorry. I've been doing a lot of research for the case lately, and it's cutting into my sleep." She raised her arms high above her head, arching her back into a deep stretch. Once her vertebrae popped, she gestured for him to take a look at the article displayed on the computer screen. "I can't find anything new. Nobody can seem to figure out what happened to all those villagers. It's like they all got up and left in the middle of the night, abandoning their homes and everything they owned."

"I know. I've read all these, too." He sighed and rubbed his neck, then smoothed his shoulder-length hair back into place. "You'd think somebody would have found some clue, after nine decades. But there's nothing that indicates a bunch of people from that region suddenly set up shop somewhere else."

Sumira nodded. "None of the neighboring villages even realized anything was amiss until their merchants came back with the same goods. "

"We've been over that before. What I'm more interested in are all the vanishing incidents after the mass disappearance." He idly turned the knob on the monitor, scrolling down the article to a faded drawing of a young woman dressed in an old-fashioned yukata. "I mean, like that ghost hunter we're looking for."

"Paranormal investigator," the young woman corrected. "Just so you know, he has a name: Ishikawa Kaoru."

"Whatever." Akira leaned against her desk, crossing his arms while he watched her continue sifting through the digital archives of the local newspaper. "He came here with his film crew three months ago, hoping to investigate the village for his new show. But they all disappeared when they started filming. It's really odd how the live feed cut off immediately after they went through the gate."

"I still say it's just bad reception. That town is really remote, and the mountains might have interfered with the camera and cell phones."

He shook his head. "They had a satellite phone, Su. There is no way one of those would stop working in the mountains. Hell, there's no way it would stop working unless they chucked it into the ocean."

"Maybe they lost the phone, or it died." She frowned. "And don't call me 'Su'."

Akira laughed. "Whatever you say, 'Mira."

"That's just as bad!"

"Hey, I need to call you something. Besides, we've known each other how long? Since our mothers found out they were pregnant at the same time?"

Sumira felt the grin creeping across her face, but she hid it by ducking her face forward so her loose bangs cordoned her from his line of sight. "So? You should be grateful I even let you call me by my first name, _Asakura_."

"If that's what you want, _Kurosawa."_ He reached out and swiped her hair back behind her ear before she could stop him, fending off her frown with his merry smile. "But after being on a first-name basis for twenty-five years, it'll sure be strange using the surnames instead."

She glared at him for a second, but could not hold back the humor and surrendered with a helpless laugh. "One of these days, I'm going to beat you. Then you'll be sorry!"

His teeth flashed again. "What, you'll punish me by making me your slave?"

"Akira!" she shrieked, feeling her face flush bright red.

Her partner laughed and held up his hands, letting her know he was finished teasing her. "So have you found anything new yet? Anything about Ishikawa, or the others?"

"Nothing." She leaned back in the chair and scratched the back of her head, her fingers brushing against the oval clip holding the upper part of her hair in its customary small ponytail. "In every single recorded case, the subjects just...disappeared into thin air. They went into the village, and nothing was seen or heard of them afterwards. The really weird part is that sometimes it wasn't the entire group. There are several occasions where just one or two people went missing, and the people they were traveling with searched for them, but never found a thing."

"It's like a Japanese Bermuda Triangle opened in that village," Akira commented, tilting his head to the side while he crossed his arms.

"We already have one of those in Tokyo Bay. Having two in a single country is impossible," she retorted, reaching for the manila envelope containing the information they had collected on the case.

"How do you know that? It's not like anybody's ever managed to study the Triangles."

"It just is." Sumira found the paper she was looking for, a photocopied article from 1937. This article had made her tear up with sympathy for the young girl pictured alongside the story. The child's eloquent eyes always grabbed her attention and held it, made her stare into despair and confusion personified. "See? This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. In July of 1937 Nanami Satsushima, her parents, and her baby brother were on a trip to visit her grandmother for New Years. Her father decided to use a shortcut through the village to shave a few days of travel. By the time locals found the family's campsite, Nanami was the only one left. She could not provide any reason for her parents' disappearance. All she was quoted as saying was 'they were taken', and complained of nightmares for days afterward."

"What sort of nightmares?" Akira asked, seating himself on the desk.

"She screamed about white hands reaching for her, red skies, and blood. Bear in mind that these images were only conveyed when she was asleep, and once awake, she was unable to recall anything except an overwhelming sense of dread." Sumira crossed her legs, lightly bouncing her right leg atop her knee. "Keep in mind that she was only seven at the time. It's possible her nightmares were in no way connected to the disappearance of her family."

"Especially since they just vanished like all the others, without a trace. Kids have imaginations; she might have just been frightened by the tales of ghosts in the village." He reached up and began fiddling with his necklaces, flipping the longest one between his fingers. Sumira let her eyes be drawn to the flashing of the silver kanji pendant, then followed the leather thong to the next necklace, a silver skull with ruby eyes impaled by a sword. From there her gaze roamed to the eastern dragon on its thick chain, fastened tightly around his neck and resting at the base of his throat. She had always liked that dragon. It was her favorite of his necklace collection.

"See something you like?" he purred, making her jump in her seat.

"Just some smartass who thinks he's hot stuff," she snapped, pretending her face wasn't flushed scarlet.

His satisfied laugh grated at her nerves and she twirled her seat back to the computer, cuing up another article on the history of disappearances in the region. "You should just give in to your animal attraction to me. You know you want me," he teased, striking a sexy pose.

"I'm not into dogs." She smothered her laugh at the crestfallen look on his face. "Anyway, we should get back to work. I don't think there's much truth to the stories of ghosts. People were probably seeing shapes in the trees or something."

Akira took the folder from her and leafed through the sheets of paper. After a minute, he held up a stapled set of faded stationary, photocopied from an old diary. "You gotta admit, it's very strange how many ghost sightings there have been in the area, especially in the village grounds. They're consistent, too. If it was all stories, why are they so similar?"

She shrugged. "Maybe people were just repeating stories they heard."

"C'mon, wouldn't it be at least somewhat interesting if there was really a ghost or something up there?" he prodded, poking her shoulder playfully.

Sumira felt a foreboding shiver crawl down her spine, raising goosebumps on her flesh. Not wanting to make her friend think he had spooked her, she ignored it. "There's nothing supernatural on that mountain. The only weird thing is all these disappearances, and there's got to be a logical explanation for it. That region gets hit by some bad storms; maybe there were mudslides or lightning strikes that sent people falling down the mountainside. Or there could be animals that attacked them. Who knows?"

"Or it could be ghosts spiriting them all away, making them join the ranks of their spectral army."

She turned to look at him full-on, an incredulous look on her face. "Aren't you supposed to be the smart one? That's got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth!"

"Got you to look at me, though," he laughed. She pouted, and he reached out to ruffle her hair with a grin, which only broadened when she batted his hand away. Akira hopped off the desk, his wallet chain jangling as it slid off the surface. "I think we've gotten everything we need for a field investigation. We've done our research, but there aren't any more leads here."

"It would help if more of the locals would talk to us," Sumira grumbled, pushing back from the desk and getting to her feet. One of the long fringes hanging from the end of her suede belt caught on the chair's arm, and she had to stoop and untangle it before she could stand. "Every time I tried to interview people, they would clam up. It's like they're all scared to talk to us or something."

"Which doesn't make sense, because it's just an abandoned village up in the mountains that happens to have a lot of people turn up missing over the past nine decades."

She sighed and fell into step beside him, clutching their collection of research while they left the archives. "Your sarcasm underwhelms me."

"Likewise," he replied. "Let's get ready to visit the village."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Sumira rubbed her arms, trying to convince herself that it wasn't cold. The sky was overcast, and the trees hanging over the trail blocked most of the light that managed to make it through the clouds. The gloomy forest seemed to close in around them, raising her sense of unease. There was something very unnerving about this mountain.

Akira glanced at her, then shrugged off his black leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. "You need this more than I do," he explained when she tried to stop him. "I mean, a white tank top isn't exactly the greatest at retaining warmth. The jeans can, but not that shirt."

"Where does that leave you, though? You don't have any sleeves, either," she pointed out. "And here. If you're giving me your jacket, you get to carry the backpack."

"Maybe I just don't want any errant film crews seeing that butterfly on your shoulder," he teased, taking the canvas pack of supplies and notes and slinging it over his shoulders.

She laughed. "If those guys are still kicking up here, I bet they'll be more interested in being rescued than in my tattoo."

"But it's so unusual for a girl to pick such a vibrant tattoo. Crimson ink? That's not something you see too often, at least not on someone so pretty."

Sumira felt the blush rise, and covered it by pulling the jacket higher and flipping her hair out of the collar. He only said it when he was teasing her, but it was nice to think that he might find her pretty. "I bet they'll be more surprised by you. You look more like some punk rocker than a trained private investigator," she replied archly, letting her gaze roam over his dark steel-toe boots, torn black jeans, wallet chain, black wife-beater, studded wrist cuffs, necklaces, and the silver earrings poking through his long black hair.

One brow arched, he regarded her with a similarly-appraising gaze. She held still, letting him take in the blue jeans, fringed suede belt, and white tank top. "A nice girl and a rocker boy? I bet they'll be more interested in making us into a TV show when this case is finished."

"They won't do that. Besides, once they get a look at my makeup, I'll bet they won't think I'm such a nice girl." She pointed to the dramatic purple eye shadow and black liner around her eyes.

"Makeup comes off," came his flippant reply. "And so do the clothes."

An exasperated sigh made its way into the gloom. "You never give up, do you?"

"Not a chance." Akira stepped over a hole in the trail, then waited while she hopped over it. He brushed his hair away from his golden eyes and peered up the side of the mountain. "I wonder how much longer we have before we get to the village?"

"According to those old maps, we should start seeing the outlying buildings soon." Sumira crossed her arms and shivered lightly as a cold breezed blew past them. "Why's it so cold? It was nice and sunny before!"

"I still say it's ghosts. Paranormal investigators always say that the temperature drops when spirits are near."

"You've been watching too many scary movies. There's no such thing as ghosts, and you know it!"

"Well, we'll find out in a little while, won't we?" He nodded ahead. "Looks like we found those buildings you were talking about. See?"

"I'm not blind, you know," she grumbled, following him up the trail. The structures lining the path were buildings in name only, so worn and rotten that it looked like they could collapse at the slightest touch. It appeared that they were once shops or stands.

Akira stopped to look at one with a faded, weather-beaten sign, the barely-legible inscription claiming to offer fresh mushrooms. "Pretty eerie, huh? Like they really did just up and vanish."

"Didn't that diary say that everybody disappeared during some big festival?" she asked, examining the front porch of a partially-collapsed house. She could see fallen beams and cracked floors beyond the rotted paper of the door panels.

"Biggest one in the region, the Heart Festival." He paused and chewed his lip in thought, staring up at the large gate standing at the edge of the market area. The path continued beyond the gate, curving around the mountain and, presumably, leading into the village proper. "When I interviewed that historian in town, she said it used to have a great deal of religious significance, back when this village was still in operation. Since then, it's become a holiday celebrating love and romantic relationships. Pretty big day for proposals and confessions of love."

"So kind of a local version of Valentine's Day."

"Seems like it. But it's not limited solely to girls. Boys get to participate as well." He leered down at her with a charming smile. "Think we should get in on it? I think it's happening this week."

"In your dreams, Lover Boy," Sumira snorted, ignoring the flutter in her chest. She grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the gate. "I don't see any evidence that Ishikawa and his crew are here. It's too run-down and none of the buildings are suitable for habitation. That means they're probably up in the village itself, so let's go!"

Akira allowed himself to be yanked along, but a few feet from the gate he stopped short. Sumira tugged at him for a moment, then glanced back at him curiously. "Is something wrong?"

He looked up the mountain, past the gate, then shook his head. "Nothing. Just...a weird feeling, that's all. Like I've been here before."

"What? That's crazy. You've never been outside of cities in your life."

She was expecting him to reply with some teasing quip like "Oh, so you've been watching me all my life?" But Akira bit his lip and looked troubled. "I know. I just... I feel like I know this place. Like it's familiar."

Sumira frowned. "It's probably nothing. Maybe you saw this on a movie or something." When he didn't reply, she tugged at his hand again. "C'mon, let's go."

He dragged his feet a little, but allowed her to pull him up to the gate. Sumira felt goosebumps race along her arms beneath his jacket, but she shook off the strange feeling. Her whole life, she had gotten weird sensations around old structures, especially shrines and graveyards, but she had learned to ignore them. Her mother had called it "psychic ability." She preferred to think of it as a coincidental chill. There was no such thing as psychic power, outside of movies and comic books. It just didn't exist.

Akira dug his feet in just before they passed beneath the gate. "We shouldn't go in," he muttered, his face pale. "It's not... This feels wrong."

She didn't care. "It's just an abandoned village, and we need to find Ishikawa. Quit being such a baby, Akira!"

He shook his head, fear and confusion widening his golden eyes. "We shouldn't go in there. We might not be able to come back!"

"You're coming whether you like it or not!" Sumira pulled his hand as hard as she could, jerking him with her though the gate. He yelped as he lost his balance and fell on top of her, catching himself on his hands. She blinked up at him, then offered a sarcastic smile to hide the sudden racing of her heart. "See? Nothing happened."

Instead of making some teasing comment about their compromising position, he just shook his head, still pale. "I think something did. This doesn't feel right, Sumira. Can't you tell?"

"All I feel is you," she murmured, pushing him aside so she could get up. She ignored the blush rising to color her cheeks and neck, paid no attention to the little voice that reminded her how often she had dreamed about seeing him laying atop her, and forced herself to focus on the job. Ishikawa's studio was paying them to find him and the crew, not roll around on the mountainside. She rubbed her cheeks, then looked back at the gate.

All she saw was an empty trail.

Stunned, she stared back the way they had come. Where was the gate? The buildings? The stalls? Everything had vanished.

"Akira...?" she asked, turning to him. Like her, he was gawping down the trail, his eyes wide with shock.

"I told you we shouldn't have come here!" he whispered.

She swallowed, feeling the familiar old chills streaking down her back and legs. This was crazy. There was no way all those structures could have disappeared. That was impossible!

But if it is impossible, a little voice inside her wondered, where are they?

She swallowed hard and got to her feet, woodenly brushing herself off. Whatever had happened, they still had a job to do. Once they found the missing people, they could figure out how to get out of here. "Well, we're here now. It's doing us no good just sitting around, so let's focus on finding the television crew."

Akira likewise stood up, shoving his hands into his jean pockets and hunching his shoulders. "Remember how I told you I had a bad feeling about this job? Well, I still do."

Her mind wandered back to the day they had first been contacted by the TV studio, two weeks ago. The studio had wanted Ishikawa's disappearance to be kept quiet, and so they had called the two of them to investigate and bring their people back. She and Akira had acquired a reputation as reliable, thorough, discreet private investigators; for their age, they were the best. On top of their skills, nobody would expect two youngsters who looked like rockers to be investigating anything. Akira in particular was good at blending in and charming their contacts. She was better at gathering information and taking pictures if they were required to tail someone. That aside, they both had a knack for finding things. Somehow, her partner always seemed to _know _where a thing or person could be found. Sumira was more intuitive, capable of reading a person almost instantly. They worked especially well together because they had known each other for so long.

Akira could also tell when to take a job and when to leave well enough alone. He had been very reluctant about taking this job, but Sumira had bullied him into it. The money was obscenely good, and they needed some extra cash to replace their tail vehicle. The last time they had used it, a drunk driver had plowed into the front right side, putting it completely out of commission. If they didn't need the money so much, she might have been inclined to follow his gut and decline the job.

Now she was starting to wish that they had, reward or no.

Not that she'd ever tell him that, of course. He'd never let her forget it. "Well, let's check out the village. Maybe we'll get lucky and find the crew quickly." She shivered violently as a freezing wind blew past them, rustling the leaves overhead. The trees seemed especially close around them, closing out the sky entirely overhead. It seemed much darker than it had when they were coming up the trail before.

Akira shook himself and flashed her a weak version of his usual cocky smile. "Maybe we'll figure out what happened to all those other missing people. That would be a story and a half, huh?"

"I think we should just stick with finding Ishikawa and the others." The two of them continued up the trail, trying to ignore their unease. Akira began lightly swinging the backpack from his right hand, for lack of anything better to do. After a few minutes, Sumira reached out and grabbed his arm. "Cut it out," she hissed. "That's really annoying."

"As you wish." He slid the backpack up his arms and buckled the strap around his waist. He stopped and peered ahead. "Do you see a light up there?"

She stepped next to him and squinted, peering though the gloom. There was a very faint flicker of light, as though reflected from around the bend in the trail. "What do you think it is?"

"Firelight, I guess. Electric lanterns and flashlights don't flicker like that," he said with a shrug. "Shall we?"

She studied his grin, noting that it seemed a little less brilliant, less cocky than usual. She knew how he felt. There was a very unnerving atmosphere to this mountain, one that had only gotten stronger since they had passed under the gate. "Not like we have a choice," she replied, grabbing his arm again.

He sighed heavily. "You know, you're bruising my arm. Wanna just hold hands?"

Sumira stopped short, feeling her blood suddenly thundering in her ears. "H-hold hands?"

"Would you rather hold feet?" Now the grin was broad and genuine, the same one he used whenever he was teasing her. The golden eyes, so haunted a few seconds ago, now glittered with mischief.

She felt her own smile spreading in response. "I think I can let you touch my hand, but just this once." She slipped her hand into his and felt a faint blush rise as he gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Now can we go?"

"Lead on, fair lady."

She shook her head and began walking up the trail again. This village must have had some very fit inhabitants, she thought. With a climb like this up and down the trail, there was no way anybody could live here and accumulate unwanted weight. She visited the gym three times a week, and she was still feeling a painful burn along her calves, thighs, and hips from the hike. The trail wasn't terribly steep, but it was a long walk uphill.

She glanced over at her partner, a little concerned for his welfare. Akira was not as diligent about regular workouts as she was, although he did sometimes accompany her to the gym when she bullied him into it. He had a high metabolism that prevented him from gaining too much weight, and didn't see the point in exercising when the pounds never seemed to stick to his body. "You okay?" she couldn't help asking.

He gave her his usual wide smile. "I'm fine. Creepy atmosphere, vanishing marketplace, and weird feelings aside, I'm feeling peachy."

"That's not what I meant. I mean, do you need a break or something? We've been walking a long time here."

He shook his head, sending his hair swishing about his face. A few of the black strands stuck to the sweat accumulating on his forehead and cheeks. "We're almost to the top. I can take a breather then."

"All right then." Sumira let the silence fall again, trying to ignore the little voice that kept telling her something was very, very wrong with this place. Focusing on Akira distracted her, but it didn't take her mind completely off the eerie feeling.

Not that focusing on him was much help. They had been friends all their lives, and they were comfortable enough to tease and playfully flirt with each other, but Sumira would have to be in complete denial to say that she was not attracted to him. He was a very attractive guy, and funny and highly intelligent on top of that. Plus he was charming, and a total flirt. She had always cared about him as a friend, but it was getting harder and harder to keep telling herself that there was nothing more there.

She shook her head, trying to fling the unwanted thoughts far from her mind. Akira was a ladies' man, and she had seen how he acted around his many girlfriends. She was so far in the friend zone that nothing short of a miracle or a head injury would change how he thought of her.

A few more steps, and they rounded the bend leading to the village, the path finally leveling off into plateau. Akira bent over and put his hands on his knees, breathing deeply with his head down. Sumira shook her head again. "I keep telling you that you need to go to the gym with me. If you would just listen, then you wouldn't have such a hard time with stuff like this."

He twisted his head enough to give her a crooked smile, his hair falling gently across his golden eyes like a black veil. "Here I thought the only benefit in going there was seeing you in those tight shorts and your bra."

"Pervert," she muttered, stepping away from him. She lifted her head, then a soft gasp made its way out of her throat. "Akira?"

"Yeah?" came his absent-minded reply. He was busy retying his boots.

"Look." She pointed to the sky, feeling the blood drain from her face. He joined her in staring upward, his mouth slack. The sky, once the uniform grey and white of an overcast day, had turned scarlet and ruby. The flickering light they had noticed earlier came from maroon and black clouds flying across the crimson expanse, causing a disturbing strobe effect on the landscape beneath them. Sumira's skin crawled as though covered in ants, and she shivered violently.

Ahead of them the village sat stark and black, bathed in the light from the unnatural sky. Nothing moved in the silent street, the empty windows. No breeze stirred the debris scattered between the houses. Dead trees reached upwards, their ebony branches naked, stripped of all fragments of life. There was nothing alive, as far as the eye could see.

"Look." Akira pointed to a house nearby. Stacked neatly on the front porch were plastic black boxes and rolls of colored computer wires. A laptop sat open atop one of the larger containers, the screen black and empty. A silver external hard drive sat beside it, piquing Sumira's interest.

"So the film crew _was _here," she murmured, moving towards the house.

"Wait." Her partner grabbed her wrist, drawing her attention back to him. "Do you really think this is a good idea? I mean, this is beyond weird. None of this was in those pictures we got of the village."

He was right about that, she had to admit. The photos they had been given by the television studio looked perfectly normal, exactly what one would expect from an abandoned, century-old town. The sky had been blue, the surrounding trees alive and slowly overtaking the rotting houses. Most of the structures had been falling down and filled with encroaching greenery. Birds had been perched on the caved roofs and in the trees. They had even spotted a few animals peering at the photographer, half-hidden by the foliage. There had been nothing unusual about the village at all, nothing that would have given cause for unease.

"Well, obviously whoever took those pictures managed to get out of this place. We should be able to leave, too, once we find our targets. Now, come _on._" She pulled his hand, forcing him to stumble after her. They made their way to the empty house, with Akira obviously uncomfortable and Sumira hiding her nervousness from him. There was no point in admitting that she was as disturbed as he was, not when they still had a job to do. He squatted in front of the laptop, examining it closely. "Is there any juice left at all?" she asked. Unlikely though it was, she felt compelled to ask, just to break the silence.

Akira hit the Power button, and they both blinked in surprise as the screen lit up. They were looking at a full-screen view of themselves and the village behind them, via the laptop's camera. "Has that been recording all this time?" she wondered softly. "How's that battery still working?"

"Beats me. There's nothing normal about any of this. A red sky, a vanishing marketplace... Why not a laptop battery that lasts for two weeks in the mountains with no possible way to charge?" Her partner used the wireless mouse to minimize the camera view and scroll back through the footage. "Kaoru Ishikawa had a gimmick on his show where he would put journal entries on a laptop, chronicling his findings and experiences between real-time video. He must have wanted to use this house as his base camp; it's in better shape than most of the others, from what I can tell."

She turned to look at the houses lining the road. "Actually, none of these houses are all that bad. They look like they were only abandoned a day or two ago."

"But in those pictures, they were all rotting and falling apart," Akira pointed out. "So how did they suddenly fix themselves?"

"Maybe there's something on there," Sumira replied dryly. He gave her a withering glance over his shoulder as he continued looking through the accumulated footage.

"Thank you, Lady Obvious."

"Oh, so I don't make Captain?"

"Nah. Just because I like you," he quipped with a grin. She bit back her retort as he pulled up the first video log. "This is from two weeks ago. Probably right after they got here; he usually does an introductory log on the show to give his first impressions of the location and lead into the history segment. Let's see what we got here."

There was a flicker on the video window, then a handsome young man appeared from the waist-up. His face was that of an idol, effeminate and smooth, framed by long locks of loose, shoulder-length hair dyed blond. He was wearing a black turtleneck shirt, and a silver chain with a round jade pendant hung half-hidden by the folded fabric of the neck. He gave the camera a brilliant half-smile, and Sumira felt her heart flutter. She would never look at any man other than Akira, but a girl would have to be a saint to think that Kaoru Ishikawa was not gorgeous.

Oddly enough, behind him was a grey-white sky, and he was framed by the rotting hulk of an abandoned home.

_"Well, we've arrived in the Ruined Village. It's not quite what I expected, but there is a certain quaint, natural beauty to this place. I'm not sure how much of the interiors we can investigate, because most of the houses are falling apart, but we'll do what we can. I've heard all my life how haunted this village is, so I'm certain I can snoop out a few unsuspecting spirits even if I can't get inside the houses." _He glanced up at the sky, where clouds were slowly moving to cover the white expanse. _This is perhaps the most isolated location we've ever investigated. There's a town not three miles away, but you feel completely distanced from the rest of the world here. It feels like you are all alone, in a place where time has slowed, stilled, and finally been forgotten. Nobody has lived here for almost a century, but there is a quiet anticipation amid the isolation. Almost as thought this village is waiting for the people to come back." _Kaoru looked around and rubbed his arms, a little more theatrically than was totally necessary, then shivered. _Like the village itself is watching you. __It's a very uncomfortable feeling, let me tell you."_

"He was right about one thing. It feels like you're being watched," Sumira murmured.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there was something looking at us right now," Akira replied. "I feel like there are people all around us, just out of sight."

"Don't say stuff like that. It's creepy!" she admonished, swatting him on the shoulder.

"Sumira, there is not one single thing about this entire situation that _isn't_ creepy." He brought up the next video log. "Looks like something changed between this entry and the previous one. Take a look at the background."

She examined the scenery behind Ishikawa, and swallowed back her pounding heart. "The sky's red, and the house is in one piece."

Akira nodded, flipping his bangs back from his eyes for a moment before they settled back into place. "Let's see what he says."

In this log, the paranormal investigator was a little less collected than he had been in the first entry. His eyes kept darting to the side, and his hands were clasped tightly together in his lap. He kept squeezing and releasing them as he spoke. _"Something strange is going down. My crew and I were looking around the village when we heard a crash of thunder, and a brilliant flash of lightning. It was so bright, we all were blind for a few minutes. But when we could see again, everything was different. Look at this!" _He leaned to the side and thumbed over his shoulder, drawing attention to the near-intact dwelling behind him. _"The sky's red, the clouds are black, and the entire village has been fixed. There was not a single home that didn't feel like a strong breeze would blow it down, and now all of them look like they were just abandoned yesterday. Earlier, when we were trying to figure out what to do, it started raining blood." _He turned the laptop so it faced a puddle beside the steps leading up to the porch. The puddle was a noticeable shade of crimson, and when he tossed a clump of dirt into it, the liquid that splashed up in droplets to collide with the weathered steps remained thick and red. _"I assure you, it's blood. Water doesn't smell like copper. I didn't taste it, but one of my crew did. He said it tasted exactly like blood." _Ishikawa took a deep breath and straightened, giving the camera a wan smile as he turned it back to face him. He smacked his fist into his open palm, a confident movement that didn't match the turmoil in his dark eyes. _"I don't know what's going on here, but I think it's time we started investigating. Let's get hunting!" _

"Is that his catchphrase?" Sumira asked, raising one eyebrow.

Her partner nodded. "He says that right before the investigation begins. He'll do a second log after the history segment, say that, and then go get his camera and get started."

"I thought he had a film crew following him around. Why would he need his own camera?"

"Not a video camera. He has this old-fashioned camera that he uses. I think it's just a gimmick, but he takes pictures with it during his investigations. He shows pictures to the audience if he catches anything interesting, which he usually does. Ishikawa has an unusual amount of luck when it comes to ghost-hunting." Akira nibbled at his lip, then reached up and pulled a bit of his hair into his mouth, chewing at it. Sumira wrinkled her nose; she had been trying to break him of that habit ever since they were kids, but he stubbornly refused to quit putting his hair in his mouth when he was thinking. "It's why he got so popular, along with those pretty-boy looks of his. No other ghost hunter has ever had such good luck when it comes to getting evidence."

"Is he legit? I mean, most of those shows are totally staged."

"There have been any number of skeptics following him around, even before he got his show. Every single one of them were convinced he was the real deal." Akira clicked on the next video log. "This one's time-stamped about eight hours after the last one. Let's see what's on it."

Ishikawa was much paler this time, and his eyes were wide. He hugged himself as he sat before the laptop, bending forward as though in pain. His hair was mussed and his turtleneck was ripped. At the bottom of the frame, hanging by a leather strap, was the old camera Akira had mentioned. She couldn't see much due to the angle of the shot, but it looked like a bronze piece with intact black bellows. The ghost hunter licked his lips before speaking. _"I can't believe what's going on. It's... I've never experienced anything like this before. The stories you hear about people being spirited away? Taken by ghosts? They're real, and it's happening right now!" _He shook his head and looked into the laptop, his fear obvious in the paleness of his skin, the way his eyes kept darting around. _"Members of my crew keep going missing. At first I thought it was because they were freaked out or running away, or even getting lost. But then I saw one of them get snatched. One of my camera guys, Sohma-kun, was standing in front of an open door filming me, and these long white arms came out of the darkness, wrapped around him, and pulled him inside the house. When the rest of us tried to find him, there was no trace. Even his camera was gone. All we found was a blood trail leading deeper into the house, to and from the door. The trail cut off at a wall, suggesting that whatever spilled that blood went _through _it. There was even one spot cut in half!" _He glanced to the side and waved someone over. A few seconds later, a pretty young woman with long brown hair tied in a ponytail and held upside down against the back of her head by a large clip appeared in the frame. She was carrying a boom-mike and headphones; evidently, she was the sound person. She looked just as rattled as the host. _"Yukari-chan here is the only one left, other than myself. All the camera guys, our gofer, and my field director Kirishima-san have all vanished. It's just us." _

The woman, Yukari, laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly. _"We'll get out of here, Ishikawa-san. You're the best ghost hunter there is. I'm sure that you'll get us out safely." _

He brightened a bit at her assertion, straightening in his seat. Some of the fear drained from his eyes as he preened. _"You're right. I can usually tell where the bastards are, so I'll know where to go. I'll find a way out of this village. Then we'll have one hell of a story! We just need to retrieve the tapes first." _

She frowned a little. _"Don't you think it would be better to concentrate on getting out of here? We haven't found any of the cameras, and we've been all over this village." _

_"We have to get the tapes." _Ishikawa turned away from the laptop, apparently uncaring that the camera was still recording. Sumira and Akira shook their heads in tandem; apparently, there was a great deal of editing done after filming, for him to have this kind of attitude. _"Yukari, it's too important. This is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Our careers could rest on getting the footage to the studio. I mean, just think of the headlines!" _He spread his hands, miming a sign. _"'Famous Ghost Hunter Kaoru Ishikawa and Intrepid Sound Woman Confirm Legends of Spiritings, Escape with Proof Following Disappearances of All Other Crew Members!' Tell me that doesn't sound awesome! Think of how much recognition we'd get from this!" _

Yukari bit her lip, then took a deep breath and gave him a weak smile. _"I'll follow you anywhere, Ishikawa-san. Just lead the way."_

"I wonder if they're seeing each other..." Akira muttered, leaning back on his haunches.

Sumira gave him a questioning look. "You think so, too?"

"It's pretty obvious. I don't know how serious it is, but I'll bet you anything they're sleeping together." He clicked through the additional files, and frowned. "The files are missing." At her curious look, he pointed to the empty windows. "See? There's supposed to be footage here, but it's gone. Somebody probably downloaded it onto a flash drive or something."

"Do you think they caught something big?"

"Either that, or something they didn't want seen." He clicked through a few more files, then stopped. "Look at this. It's from two days ago."

Sumira bent beside him, peering at the dark footage as he let it run. The laptop's auto-focus was zeroing in on something, but she couldn't pick anything out. "I don't see anything. Are you sure this is important?"

Akira swallowed hard and sucked on his hair. "Here, I'll play it again. I know I saw it."

He scrolled back to the beginning of the file, then let it play again. She squinted, letting her gaze roam across the footage, then felt the blood drain from her face when she saw it.

It was very faint, almost indistinguishable. The footage had gone strangely grainy, marred with the lightest of static. But once she saw the movement, Sumira was able to pick out the pale silhouette of woman in a grey kimono, her black hair hanging across her face like a veil. She paced across the porch of the house across the road, an eerie vision slowly moving to the broken doors on the opposite side of the building. As she reached the doors, she turned and raised her hand as though opening the right one, then passed through it, vanishing behind the wood. The doors never moved.

The partners stared at the footage, then their gazes slipped to meet one another. Sumira knew, from the reflection in Akira's wheel-sized eyes, that her face must be as terrified as his. "What was that?" she whispered through a bone-dry throat.

He did not reply. Instead, he stood up and jammed his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders as though cold. Sumira leaned closer to him, feeling a chill herself. "Akira?"

His throat worked again, and he reached up to pull the twisted lock of hair from his mouth. "Looks like they found their ghosts."

"How could that be a ghost? There's no such thing!" The claim sounded feeble even to her own ears, in light of what they had just seen. "They don't exist..."

"If that wasn't a spirit, then I'll eat my entire Motley Crue record collection." Her partner shivered and turned to face the house across the street, the one where the vision had been walking. "I guess there's only one way to find out."

"You're not seriously going in there." Sumira folded her arms across her chest, trying to hide how nervous she was. "That house has been abandoned for more than ninety years. How do you know it won't collapse the moment you put any weight on it?"

"Because it sounds like Ishikawa and his crew were able to go inside at least one of the houses without any problems. If people weighed down by big, heavy video cameras and boom mikes were able to walk around without breaking through the floors, then a couple of lightweights like us won't have to worry about a thing." He strode halfway across the street, then turned and held out a hand to her with a warm smile. "Shall we?"

Sumira took a deep breath, then went to him, ignoring his hand. "If you're so hell-bent on going in there, then I suppose I have to come with you. Make sure you don't crash through the floor and get stuck."

He snorted, but led the way to the splintering porch. He reached out to the door, then hesitated. "Sumira, I don't think..."

"You don't think, what?" she questioned, trying to catch a glimpse of his face. A new set of goosebumps rose atop her arms and chased down her spine, but she ignored the sensation with a clench of her teeth.

Akira took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. "It's nothing. Let's go."

Sumira bit her lip, trying to ignore her own misgivings as her partner opened the door.


	2. Yasahara House Part One

**Summary: **Ninety years ago, every single inhabitant of a mountaintop village vanished without a trace. Over the decades, curious explorers have traveled to the abandoned hamlet, only to disappear as well. Now two private investigators find themselves at the center of the past and present, and a ritual that calls to the blood within...

**Disclaimer: **This idea is mine. Fatal Frame, and all associated objects and names? Not so much.

**Queen's** **Quornor:** Slogging through, as much as possible during my lunches. I'm pretty sure this won't be updated as often as I'd like, but I plan to work on it every day. At least until my computer gets fixed and I can afford internet. I decided to make Akira and Sumira pretty aware of the world around them. One thing I kind of dislike about the Fatal Frame characters is how disconnected they seem from the world outside the game. Miku and Mio I can understand, since they're pretty focused on their predicaments and don't really have the inclination to worry about things like music or games. But in Rei's case, with quite a bit of the game taking place in her own home, she doesn't really mention much that doesn't have to do with the Manor of Sleep and her dreams. Grief and survivor's guilt aside, that always strikes me as odd. I mean, couldn't she be focusing on external stuff to try and distract herself, even a little? I'm pretty sure Tecmo was trying to convey the whole "Closed Circle" thing, but for some reason it bothers me that there is very little attention paid to the world or life outside the setting. Hell, that's in Silent Hill, Clock Tower, and a lot of other horror franchises. Why not Fatal Frame? So with Sumira and Akira, they definitely won't be focusing exclusively on the village, their findings, and each other. They're modern PIs with attitude; they'll be mentioning stuff from their normal lives from time to time.

Yasahara House Part One

The first thing she was aware of was the smell. A distasteful combination of dust, rotting wood, mold, and a strangely sour, rancid scent to which she could not match a source. Sumira wrinkled her nose and breathed shallowly, trying to get used to the off-putting odors as quickly as possible. Next she noticed how _empty_ the house felt, a sensation exacerbated by the shadows pooling on the floor and gathering in the corners of the entry hall. Rationally she knew the house was devoid of inhabitants, but she had never felt a dwelling as lonely as this one.

She crossed her arms and stepped to the side, allowing Akira to come inside. He took one look around, then slipped his backpack off and began rooting through the front pocket. Locating their flashlights, he handed her the red one and kept the blue for himself. The sound of the zipper sliding shut echoed around the room, shockingly loud in the abandoned house. He looked a little sheepish, as though sorry for disturbing the quiet.

"Where should we start?" he whispered, getting to his feet and slinging the backpack across his shoulders.

Sumira flicked her flashlight's switch, feeling much better once the golden light sliced into the darkness to splash against the wall. "Why are you whispering?" she murmured, watching dust particles dance in the beam.

His light joined hers, sliding along the walls and ceiling before vanishing down the black hall. "Dunno. Just feels like we should."

He was right, she had to admit. The silence was so complete, it felt almost like a desecration to disturb it. "Let's go," she said, gathering her courage and beginning to walk down the hall. "If we don't find Ishikawa here, we'll try the next house."

"Maybe we should be searching for the cameras, or anything else they may have dropped." Akira stopped beside an open sliding panel, sweeping his flashlight beam across the empty tatami mats before following her. "If we find any flashdrives or tapes, we can take a look at them. I brought my mini with us, after all."

"Gotta admit, I'm impressed that you thought to bring it along this time. I wouldn't have wanted to bring a mini-computer on a hike like this."

"How else am I supposed to look at dirty pictures when you're out of the room?"

Despite herself, Sumira had to smile. "Thanks for sharing that. Now that I know you look at porn, I'll be certain to take the computer with me whenever I leave you alone."

"Like I need pictures," he scoffed. "I have my imagination, you know."

A thought crossed her mind, and she felt a blush crawl across her neck and cheeks. "Um... Who do you...imagine?"

"Who do you think, Sumira?" The playful note was back in his voice, along with his favorite teasing purr. She whipped around and flashed her light in his face, smiling grimly while he cursed and rubbed his eyes.

"Stop thinking about me like that," she ordered, turning back to the hall.

"As if you've never envisioned me like that," he muttered, jogging to catch up with her. The boards creaked and groaned beneath his feet, but they didn't give way.

"Not once." Actually, it was more like every other night, she thought to herself. Not that she would ever share that little tidbit with her partner, of course.

Their flashlights swept across the walls, revealing nothing but splintering planks. Akira turned a corner, and his beam found a simple wooden door. The duo approached the portal and Sumira reached out to try the knob. "Locked," she muttered, listening to the hollow jangle as it resisted her efforts to turn it.

"Allow me." Akira reached into his pocket and pulled out a small roll of canvas. Squatting, he laid it on his thigh and unrolled it, revealing a set of metal picks. Sumira frowned as he wedged his flashlight between his cheek and shoulder, training the beam on the lock while he set to picking it.

"Should we even bother with this? If it was locked before the crew got here, I doubt they're anywhere in this house."

"There could be another way in. Or maybe the survivors holed up in here and locked the door. You've been in this business as long as me, Sumira. You know we have to exhaust every possibility when searching for a mark." He frowned as he continued probing the ancient tumblers. "I'll get this open. You keep watch."

"Keep watch for what?" she muttered, turning to face the dark hallway. Her light played over the walls and floor, and she listened while her partner mumbled and cursed and cajoled the lock. As she swept the light over a sliding panel with missing paper, something caught her eye. For a moment, she thought she saw a face peering at her from behind the empty lattice, with dark eyes glaring between the squares. Sumira quickly turned her light back on the spot, but all she saw were the shadows cast by the wooden frames.

"Got it!" Akira slipped his picks inside the roll and tucked the kit back in his pocket, then stood up and turned the knob. He gave Sumira a superior grin as the door swung open with a loud squeak of rusty hinges. "I am the best!"

"The Master of Lockpicking has conquered another stubborn lock," she proclaimed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Let all would-be pickers bow in reverence of his matchless skill."

"Thank you for your gift of sarcasm. I shall cherish it always," he quipped, leading the way through the door. "You know, you need to play more games, if all your commentary comes from old Playstation titles." He began examining the new room, and Sumira lagged for a moment, looking back towards the empty chamber again.

"What was that?" she whispered, watching the shadows pivot and twist as she swept her flashlight across the sliding panel.

"Sumira? We found the hearth-room," Akira called. "Looks like there's a staircase up to the next floor. You wanna split up, or should we stay together while we look around?"

Considering that her mind seemed to be playing tricks on her, she did not like the idea of going off by herself in this old, creepy house. What if that thing from the front porch decided to come bother her? "I'd rather we stayed together. That way, we'll be able to help each other if a floor collapses or something." She was not about to tell him that she was afraid of ghosts; he'd never let her hear the end of it.

He bought it. "Good idea. I'd hate to think about crashing into some storage space and getting stuck there until you realize that I'm missing. Or die of starvation because the ghosts have dragged you away," he added with a grin.

"You think I'd let a bunch of spooks get hold of me?" she challenged.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick squeeze before she managed to wriggle loose. "Not if I'm there to protect you."

"I'll take the protection, but you keep your hands to yourself," she told him, turning so her blush was hidden from his too-interested gaze. She played her flashlight around the room, examining their new surroundings. This was a sizeable chamber, a little bigger than she would have expected for a country house. The stairs actually wrapped around the corner of the room, allowing for a small closet of some kind beneath the first landing, before opening onto the second floor. The hearth was on a raised platform in the center of the room, and a pile of blankets had been set by the corner of the pit, as though somebody had been preparing to roll them out for the night. Closer examination of the kettle in the center of the room revealed the ancient remains of a meal of rice. Another hallway led beyond the hearth, to a set of plain double doors.

"Should we go upstairs, or down there?" her friend wondered, going to the closet. Idly, he rapped his knuckles against the door.

"Well, I think-"

A strong, sharp knock echoed around the room, making them both jump and turn their lights on the closet door. Sumira could feel her pulse drumming against the base of her throat, and she exchanged a wide-eyed look with Akira. His face looked to be about five shades lighter than it had been a few seconds ago. "Did you hear that?" she whispered.

He nodded and raised a finger to his lips, indicating her to remain silent. Another knock pierced the darkness, and the pair flinched back again. Akira took a deep breath, then reached out and jerked the door open, flashing his light on the closet's interior.

Nothing, save moldering blankets and dusty boxes stacked atop sagging shelves.

Feeling goosebumps rise along her skin, Sumira hustled over to her friend, folding her arms to ward off the sudden rush of frozen air that swirled around them. "What do you think that was?"

"Couldn't have been the shelves settling. Wood doesn't knock like that when it gets old. It cracks and groans and creaks." He reached out and tapped the inside of the closet, getting a knock that sounded exactly like the pair they had heard before. "I think I'm ready to admit this place is haunted. What d'you think?"

"I don't know. I really don't know." She waved her flashlight around the room, hoping and dreading that she might catch something in the beam. "Let's just find Ishikawa and get out of here, okay?"

"Okay, let's start upstairs. Get the second floor out of the way first." He closed the closet door and made for the stairs, testing each creaking step before ascending. Sumira followed closely, unwilling to let him out of her sight. At the top of the flight, they were faced with two rooms and another closet, this one missing its door. He gestured at the farther door, and she shook her head. After that knocking incident, she really didn't want to be separated from him. Akira turned the knob on the first door and stepped inside, waving his flashlight around as he did.

This room appeared to be a library of sorts. Shelves lined the walls, and musty volumes were lined neatly within. Most were bound in the old fashion, but here and there were a few volumes with western leather binding. One set of shelves had collapsed beneath the weight of its collection, scattering the precious tomes across the floor. Desks and faded hangings interspersed the bookshelves, and the room was divided by simple paper screens. Several of the screens were torn and splashed with the dried remains of some ancient fluid, knocked askew in the center of the room.

"What do you suppose happened here?" Akira asked, going to examine the ruined screens. "This looks like blood."

"I don't want to know. I think we need to concentrate on finding our mark, not investigating old murder scenes." Sumira noticed a piece of lined notebook paper sticking out from between two books, suspiciously clean and modern in this abandoned room. She crossed to the shelf and pulled out the sheet, holding it up to the light so she could read it.

_We're lost our last camera. Now there's nothing to tape all this with, since I don't dare disconnect the laptop. So I'm using the director's field notebook to record what I see in this village. _

_It's just me and Yukari now. All the camera men are gone, and the director too. Our gofer vanished when we sent him to get more tape. He took off with all our flash drives, too. I really hope we find him. There was some excellent shit on those drives. If he got out of here with my material, I'll wring his neck when I find him. _

_Something weird going on with the electronics here. My laptop's power isn't draining, none of the cameras or soundpacks needed to change batteries, and the satellite phone is still on full charge. Not that we can use it to get out of here, since it keeps getting nothing but static. Even Iwasaki-san's Ovulus isn't draining, which is downright weird. That thing usually needs at least two recharges on every investigation, since ghosts like to feed off its battery when they're not using it to speak. _

_Even my camera isn't losing film. Just when I think I've gone through the roll, I find more. It keeps replenishing itself, somehow. That's one good thing about this mess. I've taken a ton of pictures with ghosts and strange stuff in them, but I haven't had to resort to Iwasaki-san's camera. Which is great because, while he can find the ghosts with those filters, he can't get rid of them like I can. I don't know how long this'll keep up, but I hope it's a long time. God only knows how long we're stuck here._

_For lack of anything better to do, Yukari and I are going to keep investigating the village. This place is chock full of spooks, and if I can get out of here, I'll have plenty of footage. I'll be a star!  
_

"Find something?" Sumira jumped at her partner's voice, and turned to face him.

"Guess Ishikawa started keeping a diary of sorts, after they lost their video cameras. Looks like it got torn from a notebook, so we might find more of this somewhere." She pointed to the scribbles on the page. "Sounds like he got some good stuff on the USBs, too. But those apparently disappeared along with their errand boy."

"I guess their gofer knew it was time to get the hell out of Dodge, if he got the opportunity. For all we know, he might have gotten nabbed by the ghosts, too." Akira took the sheet and examined it, a frown twisting his lips. His golden eyes gleamed in the light reflected from the sheet. "Well, at least we know he was here. We're on the right track."

"That's good. If we find more of these, we should be able to find him. Might lead us right to him." Then we can get the hell out of here, she thought as she took the note back, folding the paper and putting it in her pocket.

Akira turned his flashlight back to the room, scanning the shelves. "I don't see any more pages. Let's try the next one."

Sumira followed him back into the hallway and through the next door. This room was filled with more screens, and rotting blankets were laid out atop the old tatami mats on the floor. "Guess this was a bedroom of some kind, for a big family," she commented. "Really dusty, too."

"Somebody's been here." Her partner followed a trail of footprints marring the thick layer of dust coating the room. "Size eleven sneaker, modern treads. Unless Miss Yukari has abnormally large feet, I'm guessing these belong to our man."

"I wonder what he was looking for in here..." She started peering around the room, trying to find anything that stood out. Notebook pages, for example.

"Better question: where's Yukari's trail? She was with him, so why aren't her treads in here?"

She shrugged. "Maybe she stayed out in the hall, or they split up to look for their friends."

"Sumira, you haven't once left my side since we set foot in this village. You're one of the gutsiest people I know, and Yukari looked pretty nervous when we saw her in that footage. If she left Ishikawa for even a minute, I'll run my boxers up the flagpole when we get home." Akira started searching around the room, cautiously poking at some of the blankets.

"You don't suppose he left her, do you?" She spotted a blue spiral-bound notebook sitting atop a low desk on the far wall and picked her way across to it. "Hey, here's something. Missing a bunch of pages," she noted, running her fingers along the ragged shreds of torn pages caught in the binding.

"Well, let's see what's in there." He came to her and held open half of the notebook, hefting his flashlight so they both could read it. Sumira felt her body temperature rise at how close he was to her, but licked her lips and ignored it. This was hardly the time to let her libido take over.

_Saw that ghost again. The bad one. Managed to get away before he saw us. Scariest thing I've ever seen, covered in shadows and ashes. Can always tell when he's near, the ashes start swirling and itching and biting. Yukari's terrified. Won't let me out of her sight. _

_Found a door here, too small for me. Tried to send Yukari, she started freaking. She's scared of the dark. Tried snapping pictures with my camera, didn't catch anything. Told her it was safe. She doesn't believe in the camera's power. Useless bitch. _

_Should be getting tired. Been here for days. Not hungry. Not tired. Don't have to piss or shit. Electronics not losing power. Never seen this before. Should be starving. Not starving. Why? _

_Hopeless. Can't get out. Can't let Yukari know. She'll freak again, slow me down. Can't use dead weight. _

_Head's spinning. Heard a scream in the hallway, managed to run. Been feeling stupid since. Yukari froze at it. Shoved her in other room, ran in here. She stays quiet, we're safe. _

_Safe room. Leaving this here, taking some papers. Will come back if the bad one shows up. Can't come in here. _

"Why does he sound so..." Sumira fished for a polite way to say it.

"Stupid?" Akira supplied, giving her a lopsided grin.

She dug her elbow into his ribs. "It's not nice to call people stupid, but yeah. Ishikawa has a reputation for high intelligence. So why's he writing like a four year-old?"

"Well, he mentions a scream here, that made him feel dumb. Maybe there's some kind of stupefying effect to it?" He studied the scribbles a heartbeat longer, then pushed the notebook at her and started examining the walls. "Anyway, I'm curious about that door. It's probably in here, but if we can't find it, I'll try the other room."

"Why would we want to check out some little cubbyhole? It sounds like Ishikawa was too big to fit through it, and I sincerely doubt that Yukari's in it. We would have heard her panicking or something." Sumira took the other paper from her pocket and put it in the notebook. "Hey, can I have the backpack?"

"Sure thing." Akira pulled the canvas bag off his shoulders and tossed it to her, then continued his crab-crawl around the room. He was gently pressing his hand against each panel in the wall, and tapping lightly as he painstakingly scanned for tell-tale cracks that would indicate a hidden door. Sumira poked through the blankets, and her flashlight glinted on something shiny that was sticking out from inside one of them. Curious, she flipped the top fold of the blanket back and picked the item up to examine it, noting that there were a pile of similar objects nestled deeper in the fabric.

It looked like old-fashioned camera film, held in small groups of individual slides. Faded printing on the bottom of the flimsy blue borders labelled them as "Type-16 Film."

"Hey, Akira?" she asked, taking out her handkerchief and folding the slides inside it, stuffing the bundle into her pocket.

"Yeah?"

"I think Ishikawa and Yukari were using this as a safe room. I found some of his film here."

"But not the camera, huh? I wonder if they intended to keep a cache here." Her friend tapped a section of the wall near a corner, then a smile split his lips as a hollow knock sounded. "I think I found their door. It's pretty hard to spot, but..." He pulled out his switchblade and inserted it into a miniscule crack, running it along the door's edges and slowly prying the panel open. "There we go!"

Sumira went to him and crouched down beside the opening, watching his flashlight scan the darkness within. It looked like a short passage, and beyond it was another door, this one with a dull brass knob. Cobwebs lined the walls of the crawl-space, waving gently at the breeze from tiny drafts. "Look," she murmured, pointing out long trails in the dust. "Looks like he got Yukari to take a look after all."

"Or somebody else has been in there. Those tracks are pretty dusty, too." Akira sat back on his haunches, giving her an expectant look. Sumira looked at him, then her eyes widened and she shook her head vehemently.

"No. No, no, no."

"C'mon, 'Mira. You know we have to search everywhere when we investigate stuff like this. It's part of the job description."

"Since when are we obligated to crawl through secret passages in abandoned, creepy houses to find a guy who couldn't even fit in said passage?" She crossed her arms under her breasts, a last-ditch attempt to distract him from his goal. Akira was a known breast-man. "I am not going in there. No way."

He glanced at her chest, and his eyes gleamed. To her consternation, however, he remained undeterred. "But you've done this before. You're the duct-crawler!"

"Getting into air ducts and snapping pictures is in no way related to this!"

"You got the film, don't you?"

She glared at him. "You're as skinny as I am. You could fit in there, too."

"Yeah, but I'm the leader. I reserve the right to delegate to the person with the finest ass, and the right to watch it while it bounces down a tight squeeze." He gave her a wicked leer, and she felt her cheeks heat.

To cover her embarrassment, Sumira held out her hands, one fist balled atop her flattened palm. "Play you for it."

"You're on." Akira mimicked her, then they counted off and held out their hands. "Scissors cut paper. Get in there."

Sumira mumbled something extremely unflattering, then pushed her partner aside and began worming her way into the passage. Light shone from behind her, and she stopped short. "Akira, I swear, if you're watching my butt instead of keeping watch..."

"I'm keeping watch!" came his slightly-whiny protest. "I'm just sneaking peeks every now and then."

"When I come back, I am going to give you _such_ a pinch." She continued army-crawling down the tiny corridor, praying that there were no bugs or spiders in here with her. The last thing she wanted, aside from all the cobwebs and dust currently smearing her clothes and getting caught in her hair, was to get some multi-legged creepy-crawly stuck under her shirt. Knowing Akira, he would want her to take the clothes off in order to get rid of the bug. Or worse, help her do it.

Trying to think of cute fuzzy bunnies and warm sunshine, Sumira dragged herself up to the far door and tried the knob, finding that it was locked tight. Beneath the knob was a small padlock bearing a picture of two crossed swords. "Looks like it needs a key," she called back.

"Dammit! Can you pick it?"

"Not as well as you could. You're the lockpick expert." She began crawling backwards, working her way out of the passage. Once free of the tight space, she dusted off her clothes and gestured at the opening. "Your turn."

Akira sighed and lowered himself to the floor, sliding his way into the tiny corridor. Sumira surreptitiously admired his backside while it disappeared though the door, then trained her flashlight on the doorway leading out into the hallway.

This house is way too quiet, she thought. She and Akira had investigated abandoned homes before, but none of those buildings had felt so desolate, so empty. It was almost as if noise was muted in here, suffocated by the heavy darkness that filled the walls. But at the same time, it seemed as though there was an anticipatory air about this place. The house felt as though it was waiting for something. But what would a building be expecting?

A soft jingle of metal sounded in the secret passage, and she bent down to look at her partner. Silhouetted against the glow from his flashlight, he was laying on his stomach, fussing at the lock with one of his picks.

_"Where are they?"_

Sumira shook as goosebumps instantly rose at the sibilant hiss. She whipped around to the doorway, seeing something pale flash in her peripheral vision, but the portal was empty. With a quick glance at the passage, she got up and trotted across the room, peeking out into the hallway.

Nothing.

Akira yelped, and she ran back to the secret passage. "What happened?" she called, leaning down to look at him. He had rolled onto his side and was rubbing at his right leg, looking back towards her with wide gold eyes.

"Something grabbed my leg!" he told her, his voice a little higher than usual.

She searched the corridor, but there was nothing that could have caught on him. The passage was lined with smooth wood, almost like the inside of a coffin. She shook the uncomfortable thought from her head and shrugged. "I don't see anything, and I sure as hell didn't crawl in there after you. Maybe you imagined it?"

"I don't think so. I felt fingers. Cold fingers." Akira shook himself, then rolled back onto his stomach and twisted his pick. The padlock opened with a rusty _click. _He curled enough to give her a triumphant, albeit nervous, grin. "Well, she's open. I'm going to take a look."

"You do that." Sumira rubbed her arms and legs, trying to chase the chill away.

She sat beside the opening and drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around them. This entire village felt wrong, but she was grateful for Akira's presence. He was annoying and way too flirtatious, but he _was_ her best friend and partner. Secret crush aside, his skills were a good compliment to her own. Between the two of them, she was certain they could find Ishikawa and get out of here before too long. If she had to get trapped in a creepy mountain village, there was nobody else she would have wanted to get stuck with.

Before too long, a series of grunts and low curses let her know that Akira was on his way back. She scooted an inch to the side and watched him crawl out of the passage. He dusted himself off, then turned and watched her get to her feet. "Did you find anything?" she asked.

"There's a bunch of dolls in there, all lined up on shelves. I have to admit, they're pretty impressive. They all look real enough to get up and start walking around." He reached behind him and pulled up his shirt, revealing an old white booklet with purple binding. "I found this, too. Looks like it was written by someone who lived here."

Sumira carefully took the booklet and opened it, realizing it was a diary written by someone named Michi.

_The priestess chose me as one of the shrine maiden's attendants! I get to live in the Life Shrine, and help her prepare for the ritual! Mama thinks I'm going to stay in the shrine forever, but I told her I don't want to be a priestess. After the ritual, I'm going to come back here. Attendants like me usually get married to our partners. So I'm going to fall in love, get married, and come back here to live with Mama and Uncle Shin! _

_But first, I've got to be a good attendant for the shrine maiden. I won't see Mama until I'm fourteen, except for festivals. I'm going to miss her and Uncle, but I've got to be strong. Attendants aren't supposed to cry. So I'm leaving my tears in the Doll Room. Mama said our ancestors watch over anybody in that room. They'll keep my sadness, and I'll be happy at the Life Shrine. _

_Well, I'm leaving in the morning. So I'm hiding my tears now. Goodbye, sad feelings! I won't see you until I get back!_

"Sounds like a kid. She must have been pretty young when she left this in there." She added the diary to the growing collection in the backpack, careful that it didn't get damaged.

Akira was looking back at the secret passage, his eyes narrowed in thought. "You know, it did feel like someone was watching me in that room. Different energy from the rest of the house. You think maybe she came back and left more than her tears behind?"

"Don't say things like that! You're talking about her ancestors!" Sumira smacked his arm in rebuke, trying not to smile as he cowered away from her in an exaggerated fashion. "There don't seem to be any other notebook pages in here. I think we should go back downstairs and look around."

"Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe we'll find Ishikawa and Yukari hanging out down there, instead." Her partner cracked his back, then led the way out of the room. Sumira started to follow, then stopped short when Akira halted in the doorway.

"Hey, what's-" She shut her mouth when he held up one finger, their signal for quiet. He stepped aside and gestured her forward, pointing at something downstairs. Sumira noticed the tension radiating from his body, and when she glanced at his face, it had gone almost bloodless. Suddenly conscious of the unease coiling in her gut, she looked over the railing to the common room below.

A white figure with long, pale hair, half of it tied back into a tail at the back of its head, glided slowly across the platform in the center of the room. It moved with purpose, heading for the doors at the back of the room. Just as it reached the hallway leading to them, it vanished in a slow, curling fade, like a wisp of smoke.

Sumira felt her heart hammering in her throat. There was no denying it now, no matter how much she wanted to. The other odd things could be explained away, but that...

"It wasn't in a kimono this time." Akira's breathless whisper startled her, and she had to close her eyes and take a breath before she could face him.

"What?"

"That ghost we saw in the footage was in a kimono. I'm pretty sure it was a woman, too." He shuddered and folded his arms, still looking at the hall where the vision had disappeared. "This one was wearing pants, and I don't think it was girl. The silhouette was wrong."

"So, a guy with long hair?"

He nodded. "Wasn't Ishikawa's hair fixed like that? Half up and half down?"

Now her pulse was going double-time. "Has to be a coincidence. Ghosts take a really long time to form, don't they? And we have no proof he's anything but alive."

"I hope you're right. If he's a ghost, we ain't gettin' that reward." Akira rubbed his arms, then reached down and grabbed her hand. Sumira was too surprised to pull away at first, and then decided not to say anything; his hand in hers was a comforting source of warmth. "C'mon. Let's follow it."

Follow a ghost. That sounded insane, she wanted to say. But everything about this place was insane. What difference could one more crazy decision make?

She really hoped it wouldn't.


End file.
